The present invention relates generally to electronic percussion synthesizers and, more particularly, to an electronic percussion synthesizer having an ergometrically designed drum head assembly for producing snare and tom-tom drum notes.
In conventional drum sets of the type used by jazz and rock musicians, a snare drum forms the center piece of the drum set and tom-tom drums are positioned in a semicircular pattern around the snare drum on the side opposite from the drummer. All other non-drum instruments such as cymbals and the like are positioned above and around the snare and tom-tom drums. The tom-toms are conventionally arranged with the individual tom-toms descending in pitch from the left side of the set to the right side of the set.
It is applicant's discovery that this traditional snare/tom-tom arrangement unnecessarily limits the snare and tom-tom note patterns which might be executed by a drummer. The semicircular arrangement and linear pitch pattern of the tom-toms often causes a drummer to resort to "cross-sticking", i.e. crossing one hand over the other hand and back again, in order to play appropriate drums in a pattern. Such cross-sticking causes torso contortions which impede the accurate and expressive execution of patterns or beats. In order to avoid the exaggerated physical movements associated with cross-sticking, drummers sometimes change the sticking order of ongoing patterns in order to start an approaching pattern with the appropriate drumstick and on the appropriate drum. This change in sticking order is referred to as "lead-hand switching". The mental effort which is required to execute lead-hand switching greatly impedes new and spontaneous drum pattern construction and execution.
In modern drum sets, electronic drum pads are sometimes substituted for traditional drums. However, the basic physical arrangement and pitch order of the snare/tom-tom drum configuration has remained essentially unchanged. For example, rather than providing conventional tom-toms arranged in a semicircle around a snare drum, a "midipad" consisting of a linear array of individual drum pads arranged in descending pitch order from left-to-right is positioned next to the snare drum and is used to electronically reproduce tom-tom notes. The linear arrangement of the various tom-tom pads on the "midipad" leads to the same basic sticking problems that are experienced on a traditional drum set.